“When I was growing up I always wanted to be someone. Now I realize I should have been more specific.” - Lily Tomlin

I've been reading The 12 Week Year, and besides it blowing my mind on how to stay organized around goals, it's making me think a lot about being very real, and very honest with myself about what it is exactly I want in my business.

I know quotes can feel like empty platitudes, especially on the Internet. But they're everywhere because they speak to us.

This quote from Lily Tomlin really hit me as I read it in The 12 Week Year. It made me think about focus, and how important it is to be honest with yourself about who you really want to be in this world.

I want to share something with you that might give some context about why this hit me.

This year I had a very big revelation about my mindset.

For so long I ran my business under the assumption it actually *wasn't* going to succeed. Why? Because I was too afraid to admit what I really wanted.

Sure, my business was and has been moving along. I've been making more money with each year. I have gained traction. But it was moving on in spite of me. There was something missing.

And that was honesty with myself about what exactly I wanted to be.

I believed my business had to follow the path of what other marketers and coaches were doing online. (And mind you, for the longest time I wouldn't even use the word coach to describe what I did.) The more I paid attention to others' business online, the more lost I became. I also lost touch with what I wanted, and what I wanted to be.

Having this realization that I was operating under the assumption that my business was succeeding as a fluke and not because I was talented or actually knew what I was doing was a huge a-ha moment.

It was what we call here on the east coast "a light dawns on Marblehead moment."

This realization allowed me to start to right a lot in my business that wasn't working.

It also allowed me to ask for help.

And get cut throat about what I would and wouldn't be doing any longer.

Because I was dead tired of figuring it out myself.

I was exhausted by making mistakes, having to pick myself up again, and do it all over again never knowing if I was on the right path.

I do what I do because I am passionate about helping women define, establish, and build their business online. And I want to be the best I can at it.

And the only way that's going to happen is if I get really specific about what that looks like for me.

That means saying it, honoring it, and moving towards what's working for me, and eschewing what's not, and always being honest and specific with myself about what all of that looks like.